was going on around the table, where the Emperor came from time to time to say a kind word or two to the Empress, or to joke with the Prince de Neuchâtel and myself. I was too much preoccupied to attempt to find out, either during the dinner or the rubber, what sort of a temper the Empress was in, or to surprise in her face any index to her character. Her journey had been long; she appeared fatigued and bored. She only answered the Emperor in monosyllables, and everybody else by a rather monotonous nod of her head. I do not know what it meant, but I am inclined to think that her Majesty is not free from the timid respect which her august husband imposes on all who have the honour to approach him."

After having remained two days at Dusseldorf, Napoleon and Marie Louise reached Cologne, where they visited the chapel of the eleven thousand virgins, and where a splendid Te Deum was sung in the celebrated Cathedral. They subsequently passed through Liège, Givet, Mézières, and Compiègne, and returned to Saint Cloud, after an absence of nearly three months, the longest trip made by the Emperor in the provinces of old or new France. Everywhere throughout his journey he met with the expression of two decided, but rather different sentiments-for the Empress, affectionate respect; for himself, that kind of shock which is inspired by the appearance of a man who is a living prodigy.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ZENITH OF NAPOLEON.

At the beginning of 1812, the Emperor had reached the zenith of his fame, and before we witness the commencement of his fall it may be as well to consider him as he was when at the height of his good fortune, and in the fulness of his strength, power, and glory. In his career there were two distinct periods; the democratic period and the aristocratic period. When the Empire sprang into being the former was not entirely at an end; the coins in usage bore the inscription: Republique Française Napoléon Empereur ; the Sovereign resembled Cæsar rather than Charlemagne; he did not create any majorats; he had only a very paltry number of emigrés around him; he was still, from many points of view, the man of the Revolution. In 1812, on the contrary, he had given a species of feudal character to his authority, and he was connected with the Carlovingian epoch. The

saviour of the Convention, the friend of young Robespierre, revived the military and monarchical splendour of the middle ages. The continental Sovereigns treated him with so much deference that he looked upon himself not only as their equal, but as their superior. He called them his brothers, but he considered himself more than a brother to them, the chief, in fact, of the family of Kings. The Kings of Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, Spain, Naples, and Westphalia, all of whom owed their crowns to him, were in reality his subordinates. As for the Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, the vassals of their protector, they forwarded their tribute with as great haste and punctuality as if they had been simple Prefects of the Empire.

The salons of the Tuileries were crowded with emigrés. It might well have been Coblentz. The men of the old régime were especially appreciated. Of all the aides-de-camp of the Emperor, the one who was most pleasing to his Sovereign was, perhaps, the Count de Narbonne, Chevalier d'honneur to one of the daughters of Louis XV., and Minister of War of Louis XVI. The strictest and most orthodox etiquette was put in force in the Imperial households with inflexible discipline. The high dignitaries and marshals concealed their plebeian names under the sonorous titles of princes and dukes. Madame de Mailly, widow of a Marshal of the Monarchy, was allowed to enjoy

the rank and prerogatives of a wife of a high officer of the Crown, and appeared as Maréchale at the reception of the 1st of January, 1811. The Court of Versailles might be said to have been revived.

Napoleon infinitely preferred divine right to the sovereignty of the nation. "He was very much struck," we read in the Memoirs of Prince de Metternich, "with the idea of a Divine origin of supreme authority. He said to me one day at Compiègne, shortly after his marriage with the Archduchess, I notice that the Empress, when she writes to her father, addresses him as His Sacred Imperial Majesty. Is that his usual title with you?' I told him that he was so by tradition of the old German Empire, which bore the title of the Holy Empire, and because the style was equally attached to the Apostolic crown of Hungary." Napoleon then remarked in a solemn tone. "The custom is both beautiful and easily understood. Power comes from God, and thus alone can it be placed beyond the assaults of mankind. I shall adopt the same title shortly."

About the same time when the Emperor was conversing one day with M. Molé about the buildings in course of construction in Paris, the latter asked him when the Church of the Madeleine would be taken in hand. "Well," said the Sovereign, "what am I expected to do about it?" M. Molé replied that he had understood that the Emperor intended it as a Temple

to Glory. "So people do think," replied Napoleon, "but I intend it as an expiatory monument for the murder of Louis XVI." He said to M. de Metternich, "When I was young I was a revolutionist through ignorance and ambition. When I reached the age of reason I followed its counsels and my own instinct, and I crushed the Revolution." He added-"The throne of France was vacant. Louis XVI. had shown himself unable to retain it. Had I been in his place the Revolution-in spite of the immense progress it had made under preceding reigns-would never have been consummated. When the King fell, the Revolution seized upon the soil of France, and I displaced it. The old throne was buried beneath its own rubbish; I had to found a new one upon it."

According to the Prince de Metternich, "one of the greatest and most constant regrets of Napoleon was his inability to invoke the principle of legitimacy as the basis of his power. Few men have felt more deeply than he did how precarious and fragile is authority when destitute of this foundation, and how it lends itself to attack in flank." Speaking one day to an Austrian Statesman of the conduct, when he was still First Consul, he had observed in regard to Louis XVIII., he said: "The reply of Monsieur was redolent of high tradition. There is in the légitimes something which does not belong to their mind alone. Monsieur had only consulted his own mind, he would

If